Passion the key for Blues for final Origin

NOBODY could ever accuse hooker Robbie Farah of playing without passion and he has no intention doing so tonight when he runs on the field for the Blues.

The New South Wales vice-captain is still hurting from losing this year’s series to Queensland but he’s as keen as ever for a victory even if tonight’s match at ANZ Stadium is a “dead rubber”.

“Any Origin you want to win. The motivation is to finish this year’s series with a win, make sure we don’t get whitewashed,” Farah said.

“Also it’s Gal’s (Paul Gallen’s) last game. Here at ANZ Stadium in front of our home crowd it would be nice I guess to at least take a bit of consolation out of what’s been a disappointing result in the first two games.

“So we’re hoping for a big crowd, hopefully send out Gal a winner and finish the series off on a good note.”

The Blues team will be fielding two debutants tonight.

One is Farah’s teammate James Tedesco and the other is Wade Graham who gets his second chance at playing his first game.

Farah admits he’s been mightily impressed with Graham’s attitude at the team’s camps at Coffs Harbour’s Novotel Pacific Bay Resort considering the drama that’s surrounded him over the past couple of weeks.

“It was such a tough time in the last camp for Wade but he dealt with everything that was thrown his way as a true professional,” he said.

“His mood around camp was great. He wasn’t kicking stones or anything like that. He’s gone back to the Sharks and continued to play good footy.”